Women's mobile phone ownership reached 58.8% in 2024, narrowing the gap with men to 11 points

In 2024, 58.8% of women in Bangladesh owned a mobile phone, compared with 70.0% of men. In 2021 the shares were 51.4% for women and 72.3% for men.

11.2 percentage points

Gap between men’s and women’s mobile phone ownership, 2024 (20.9 points in 2021, 16.9 in 2023).

The narrowing has come from both sides. Women’s ownership rose by 7.4 percentage points between 2021 and 2024 (55.3% in 2023), while men’s edged down from 72.3% to 72.2% in 2023 and 70.0% in 2024. Even so, roughly four in ten women still did not own a phone in 2024.

Ownership matters because a phone is the entry point to mobile money, digital government services, remittances and information. DEEPLAB’s earlier note on financial inclusion found a much wider gap in account ownership, so access to a handset is only the first barrier women face.

One caveat: the figures are the country data reported in the UN SDG Global Database, and the series has only three Bangladesh readings with a sex breakdown. The database also holds separate estimates for both sexes combined in other years (for example 2020 and 2022), which are not comparable with these and are not used here.

Source: UN SDG Global Database (IT_MOB_OWN).